Andrew Russell Forsyth,
FRS,
FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...
(18 June 1858,
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
– 2 June 1942,
South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
) was a British mathematician.
Life
Forsyth was born in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
on 18 June 1858, the son of John Forsyth, a marine engineer, and his wife Christina Glen.
Forsyth studied at
Liverpool College
Liverpool College is a school in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, England. It was one of the thirteen founding members of the Headmasters' Conference (HMC).
History
Liverpool College was the first of many public schools founded in the Victorian E ...
and was tutored by
Richard Pendlebury before entering
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, graduating
senior wrangler
The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain."
Specifically, it is the person who a ...
in 1881. He was elected a fellow of Trinity and then appointed to the chair of mathematics at the
University of Liverpool
, mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning
, established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
at the age of 24. He returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in 1884 and became
Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics
The Sadleirian Professorship of Pure Mathematics, originally spelled in the statutes and for the first two professors as Sadlerian, is a professorship in pure mathematics within the DPMMS at the University of Cambridge. It was founded on a bequest ...
in 1895.
Forsyth was forced to resign his chair in 1910 as a result of a scandal caused by his affair with Marion Amelia Boys, ''née'' Pollock, the wife of physicist
C. V. Boys
Sir Charles Vernon Boys, FRS (15 March 1855 – 30 March 1944) was a British physicist, known for his careful and innovative experimental work in the fields of thermodynamics and high-speed photography, and as a popular science communicator th ...
. Boys was granted a divorce on the grounds of Marion's adultery with Forsyth. Marion and Andrew Forsyth were later married.
Forsyth became professor at the
Imperial College of Science
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
in 1913 and retired in 1923, remaining mathematically active into his seventies. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1886
and won its
Royal Medal
The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...
in 1897. He was a Plenary Speaker of the
ICM in 1908 at Rome.
He is now remembered much more as an author of treatises than as an original researcher. His books have, however, often been criticized (for example by
J. E. Littlewood
John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician. He worked on topics relating to mathematical analysis, analysis, number theory, and differential equations, and had lengthy collaborations with G. H. H ...
, in his ''
A Mathematician's Miscellany
''A Mathematician's Miscellany'' is an autobiography and collection of anecdotes by John Edensor Littlewood. It is now out of print but ''Littlewood's Miscellany'' is its successor, published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Béla Bollo ...
'').
E. T. Whittaker
Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was a British mathematician, physicist, and historian of science. Whittaker was a leading mathematical scholar of the early 20th-century who contributed widely to applied mathema ...
was his only official student.
![Andrew Russell Forsyth - Golders Green Crematorium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Andrew_Russell_Forsyth_-_Golders_Green_Crematorium.jpg)
He died in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
on 2 June 1942 and was cremated at
Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (the equivalent of £135,987 in 2021), ...
.
Forsyth received the degree of ''Doctor mathematicae (
honoris causa
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
)'' from the
Royal Frederick University
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
on 6 September 1902, when they celebrated the centennial of the birth of
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
Niels Henrik Abel
Niels Henrik Abel ( , ; 5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who made pioneering contributions in a variety of fields. His most famous single result is the first complete proof demonstrating the impossibility of solvin ...
.
Family
Forsyth married Marion Amelia Pollock in 1910.
Works
A Treatise on Differential Equations(1885)
** translated into German as ''Lehrbuch der Differentialgleichungen'' (1912)
Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable(1893)
Geodesics on an oblate spheroid1895–96)
Theory of Differential Equations(1890–1906) six volumes
Lectures on the Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces(1912)
Lectures Introductory to the Theory of Functions of Two Complex Variables1914)
* ''Solutions of the Examples in a Treatise on Differential Equations'' (1918)
* Calculus of Variations (1927)
Geometry of Four Dimensions(1930)
* Intrinsic Geometry of Ideal Space (1935
vol. 2
See also
*
Laguerre–Forsyth invariant In projective geometry, the Laguerre–Forsyth invariant is a cubic differential that is an invariant of a projective plane curve. It is named for Edmond Laguerre and Andrew Forsyth, the latter of whom analyzed the invariant in an influential book ...
References
External links
Royal Society obituaryAndrew_Russell_Forsyth_by_Leonard_Roth.html" ;"title="Leonard Roth">Andrew Russell Forsyth by Leonard Roth
">Leonard Roth">Andrew Russell Forsyth by Leonard Roth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forsyth, Andrew
1858 births
1942 deaths
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Scottish mathematicians
19th-century British mathematicians
20th-century British mathematicians
Fellows of the Royal Society
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Royal Medal winners
Senior Wranglers
Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
Academics of the University of Liverpool
Academics of Imperial College London
People educated at Liverpool College
Scientists from Glasgow
Sadleirian Professors of Pure Mathematics